A Purdue University engineer was at the White House on Thursday to present new technology that could reduce the severity of football head injuries.

After five years of studying the brains of teenage football players, Eric Nauman and others with the Purdue University Neurotrauma Group have discovered that more than half of those who never sustain a concussion suffer lingering cognitive disability because of repeated subconcussive blows to the head.

Using helmet sensors and computers, researchers have shown that high school players received up to 1,800 hits to the head each season — some with as much force as 250 Gs. In comparison, a hard sneeze is about 7 to 10 Gs; a headbutt is about 80 Gs.

The Purdue research was shown at the Healthy Kids & Safe Sports Concussion Summit, where President Barack Obama called for more robust research into youth concussions.

"We want our kids participating in sports," Obama said as he opened the daylong summit. "As parents though, we want to keep them safe and that means we have to have better information."

The White House brought together representatives of professional sports leagues, coaches, parents, young athletes, medical professionals and others for the event.

"We met with people involved in all different aspects," Nauman said. "Some university reseachers, doctors. There were representatives from school systems and coaches and a lot of military."

Nauman and others at Purdue have developed a new helmet and liner technology that reduces the impact to the brain by 50 percent. Helmet technology has not advanced sufficiently over the past 40 years to prevent brain injuries, Nauman said. Helmets were originally designed to prevent skull fractures.

"It does a good job at that, but the helmets were never designed to significantly protect the brain itself," he said.

The summit allowed Nauman to show off materials that the Neurotrauma Group has developed and share information that they learned through their research. The setting also allowed the Purdue researcher to learn more from companies who make sensors, military doctors and a group of parents.

"It's a really dynamic, interesting exchange of information that we just don't get at the scientific meetings that we go to," Nauman said.

Nauman said he thinks the summit will create a demand for new technologies. The real question, he said, is just finding a good way to implement things. Hosting the summit at the White House will perhaps get the ball rolling faster, he said.

"People are starting to see there's synergy here," he said. "The helmet technology combined with the sensors and other avenues really represent the new markets for keeping kids safe."